


Five People Who Changed Gabe Jones' Life

by Caia (Caius)



Category: Marvel
Genre: Multi, POV Character of Color, World War II, five things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-09-18
Updated: 2007-09-18
Packaged: 2017-10-02 16:33:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caius/pseuds/Caia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>See title. Written for the Characters of Color Love Fest. Prompt was, "Five Things - "O Life immense in passion, pulse, and power,/Cheerful, for freest action form'd under the laws divine,/The Modern Man I sing" (Whitman)"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five People Who Changed Gabe Jones' Life

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks very much to [](http://glossing.livejournal.com/profile)[**glossing**](http://glossing.livejournal.com/) for beta and emergency canon information.

I. Nick Fury

Army Life, so far, had been exactly as everyone had warned Gabe it would be. After grudgingly accepting his services, the Army had shoved him into a Negro battalion and gave him servant work. Even overseas, the closest to combat Gabe had been yet was a brawl he'd gotten into with some white soldiers who'd dared threaten his trumpet. He'd won, and since by then most everyone on the base, black, white, and even some of the locals, had come to appreciate the value of Gabe Jones' trumpet-playing in the war effort, he'd even got a completely unofficial commendation along with his punishment duty.

He didn't like to let his trumpet out of his sight, after that. It had been expensive, back home, and it would be impossible to find another like it at the front. Besides, it looked like Gabe would have a better chance to serve his country with a trumpet than with a gun.

It was after a concert when Gabe first met Nick Fury. The man shoved himself right up through the crowd, the least well-turned out Sergeant Gabe had ever seen, and said, around his cigar, "Nice playin'. Do you fight?"

Gabe looked around carefully; he had no idea what was going on. "I don't get much opportunity to, sergeant."

"No, I s'pose you wouldn't. Well, I'm Sgt. Nick Fury, and I'll see what I can do about that li'l thing." He extended an unwashed hand and Gabe shook it.

"Pleased to meet you. I'm--"

"Private Jones, I know. Was on the billin'. Now lemme see if you can do anythin' other'n blow a horn."

Sgt. Fury hit first. There were plenty of witnesses to *that* little fact; one of Gabe's bandmates was even close enough that he could've heard what the sergeant had been saying.

Not necessarily enough to save him from having struck a white NCO, but Gabe did it anyway. It seemed to be expected of him.

Besides, it looked like Sgt. Fury was going to go for the trumpet next.

"Not bad," said Sgt. Fury when it was all over and Gabe had been knocked to the ground.

Gabe glared. At least he'd gotten a few blows in.

"Oh, don' worry." Nick looked around to the MPs who had showed up to arrest someone. "Just testin' 'im. Ain't that right, Cap'n?"

The last bit of this was drowned out by the arrival of a captain Gabe had never seen before. "NICK. What the HELL are you doing? You're NOT HERE to pick fights with our own people!" He turned to the gathered crowd. "Go about your business, all of you. I'll square this with command. ALL OF YOU." He turned back toward Nick. "I'll be talking to YOU about this later."

The captain looked at Gabe, who'd pulled himself up by now and was trying to look as innocent and respectable as possible, considering that he'd just been beaten up. "Knowing Nick," he looked at Sgt. Fury, who didn't protest, "I'm assuming you're not at fault in this. Go back to your business."

Gabe did so.

Later that night, practicing his trumpet a hundred yards or so from the tents, he ran into Sergeant Fury again. "Quiet with that thing," he said. "Do you *want* the Nazis to notice?"

Gabe jumped, and bit back a comment about how they might smell Nick's cigar first. "And pay attention, ya goldbrick! Here." He handed Gabe a gun, not something Gabe had handled since training (although he'd been good with them then). "Let's hope you can use that thing. I need a soldier, 's well as a bugler."

Gabe found himself taking the gun without protest. He hung the trumpet over his shoulder.

"This way." They walked through the deserts away from the camp. Gabe was expecting an officer to come out and yell at him any moment, so he saw the Nazis almost as soon as Nick did. "Ah, there they are. Now. Stay back; shoot 'em if ya can but at my signal, _blow your horn_."

On his own, Nick probably accounted for a dozen Nazis before he deigned to let Gabe awaken the rest of the camp.

Gabe killed one or two himself, in the meantime.

II. Sam Sawyer

A few weeks later, Gabe got transferred. He didn't get much notice for it, either: the day he got the order, he was put on a trunk with five other soldiers, all of them white. It was all very strange and none of them knew where they were going exactly, although the one Corporal among them, Dum Dum Dugan, said he thought it was some sort of G-2 special ops thing.

Gabe assumed wherever *he* was going, it wasn't the same place. The army wasn't integrated, after all, even though these particular white soldiers didn't see anything more peculiar than the rest of it that he was in the truck with them. Not even the southern one.

As it turned out, he *was* going to the same place as the others. When the offer was made--to *all* of them--to join in a special commando force, he thought there must have been some mistake, some sort of bureaucratic error. He hadn't heard anything about the army being desegregated, and that sort of thing would surely have even made the white radio. And yet he had been assigned to a white unit.

Maybe it was a G-2 thing. In any case, when he met Captain Sam Sawyer and Sergeant Nick Fury--the same Nick Fury he'd met just a few weeks earlier, who'd been responsible for his first real combat experience--it all started to fit together, in an odd sort of way.

With Nick Fury, none of the usual rules seemed to apply.

They had told him, back home, to make sure to always be neat and clean and polite. He and the rest of the boys had the whole weight of their race on their shoulders along with their country, and it was their big chance to show everyone not just that they could fight, but that they were as intelligent and civilized as white folks, too.

Nick Fury made him wonder if they hadn't, after all, been going about this entirely the wrong way. The dirt on his body, the cigar in his mouth, and the entire disregard for the proper way to wear an army uniform only enhanced his authority.

And the rest of Nick's First Attack Squadron--of which Gabe now seemed to be a member--came to share in both the filth and the authority. As long as they fought well, they didn't have to answer to any sort of military regulations, including the ones that would have kept Gabe out.

They just answered to Nick, and Nick answered to Captain Sawyer.

And Captain Sawyer kept the entire army off their backs.

Gabe knew more than most of the Howling Commandos--as the First Attack Squad of Able Company came to be called--about just how much Sam did. One day, three or four battles after he was integrated into the squad, in fact, when it was already starting to feel like it had been forever, Nick stormed into their tent and said, "Buck up, ya goldbricks. Jones, go see Sam. Rest of youse! Scramble and to the obstacle course in ten seconds or the enemy won't find anything left when I get through with ya!"

Captain Sawyer was in nearly as bad a mood as Nick was, but rather more quietly. His desk job had made him calmer, but no less terrifying. He loomed above a stack of official paperwork. "You asked for me, sir?" Gabe asked.

"Yes, I did." He tapped on the papers. "There're some things you should know about your status here."

"Yes, sir?" Gabe had been anticipating this for a while now.

"This is a special commando unit under the army intelligence division. As such, we are not expected to adhere to *all* of the usual military regulations. Especially since Sgt. Fury--and you are NOT to tell him I said this--works best when he is unencumbered by them as much as possible. However. The paperwork does need to be filled out. Therefore, for the duration of the war--or until the Army and the government come to their senses and integrate the goddamn military--you are officially a white man."

"I...what?" said Gabe. "But Captain Sawyer..."

"Don't 'but' me. I had enough of that from that sergeant of yours. Who, I might add, insisted on your presence in the first place. You do your job, and I'll take care of lying to the bureaucracy."

Gabe did, and Sam did.

III. "Reb" Ralston

Gabe'd been born and raised in New York City, but his parents and many of his neighbors and friends had left the south for in search of a better life. Gabe'd never been close to any southern white people, but he'd run into 'em training on military bases and in his first posting, and it hadn't gone well. And one that called himself "Reb"--well, it just seemed to be asking for trouble.

But on the first truck ride, Private Ralston smiled at them all and introduced himself as "Reb" as if it were as normal a nickname as "Gabe" for "Gabriel", and pulled out some playing cards and offered them *all* a game, and Gabe found himself saying yes.

By the time they got where they were going, Gabe was missing most of his previous week's paycheck. But it had been a nice game. And the first chance he got, Reb took them all out for drinks with their own money; and when the inevitable brawl broke out (only partially on account of Gabe drinking with the white men like he belonged there) he swung fists and chairs with the rest of them. Even if he was a tiny little thing.

As it turned out, there was nothing like fighting side-by-side in a bar to cement a friendship, between them all, and between Gabe and Reb in particular. Though they all made sure to send money home to their families *before* losing their drinking money to Reb.

One evening when the others had declined to participate at *all* and Reb and Gabe were getting more quietly drunk than usual, Gabe got the explanation, such that it was, for the name.

"Ah'm sorry about bein' called 'Reb', Gabe." Reb was leaning on the bar, face closer to Gabe's than usual. The bar was close to empty; anyone there was completely ignoring them. No one wanted to fight the Howlers that day. "Ah know what that probably means to y'all, and ah swear, ah din' mean it that way. It's jus' that, first time ah went up north, everyone made fun o' mah accent and mah horses and mah bein' from Kentucky an' they all called me 'Reb' and it kinda stuck. And ah got all proud 'bout it and now it's only my parents call me Robert anymore. Ah hope ah can be yo' friend anyway." The accent was thicker when he was drunk.

"'Course you're my friend, Reb," Gabe put his hand on Reb's back. "'N fact, till you mentioned it, I'd almost forgotten Reb meant that at all."

"Ah could try bein' Robert again for y'all?" Reb looked plaintive. And also, very drunk.

"Let's just try to forget the whole thing. C'mon, you gonna get back to the camp all right or do I have to carry you?"

"Ah dunno, maybe ya'll gonna have to carry me." Reb collapsed onto the counter, deftly missing several empty bottles.

"'Kay, then." Gabe threw Reb over one shoulder and picked up his trumpet with the other hand. "Want me to play you a lullaby while I'm at it?"

"Y'know, this would be a lot more comfortable if y'all'd let me ride on your *back*," Reb said, from somewhere in the vicinity of Gabe's bottom.

"You sure you're up to that?" Gabe started playing "Taps".

"Sure ah am!" Reb attempted to demonstrate.

"Hey! I'm not Dum Dum. You can't climb around on me like that!" Reb fell off, Gabe fell over, and Reb continued to try to climb onto Gabe's back while they were tangled together on the ground. Gabe played a wrong note or two but managed to hold the trumpet out of danger.

"That's done it." Gabe pulled himself out as far as he could. "You're going to have to walk back your own self."

"Aww, y'all so mean." Reb pulled himself up. "C'mon. Y'all can at least walk me home!"

"Since your tent is my tent, I suppose I might as well." The two of them left the bar, leaning on each other rather.

"Or we could..." Reb leaned down to whisper into his ear things which would not have seemed a good idea or even possible before that very night, between the alcohol and the Howlers.

"Yes," said Gabe, and they found themselves a storage shed for a few hours.

There were, after all, many regulations that didn't apply to their squad. These in particular certainly didn't seem to apply to Nick and Dum Dum.

And then they went back to their bunks and slept, and in the morning they got up and drilled and fought and killed, and through some miracle, didn't die.

IV. Dum Dum Dugan

Eventually, the war ended, and the Howlers went their separate ways, more or less. Dino had his acting to get back to. Izzy had his machines. Reb was too old to be a jockey any longer, so put his poker skills at work in politics. Percy went back to England and had a very successful club business going.

Gabe discovered he wasn't quite good enough to be a professional musician, so he worked at this and that, trying to figure out what to do with himself after the war. It worried him a bit, just how much of a relief it was when the Korean War came along and he had the chance to reenlist. The Howling Commandos' time there was relatively brief--and they were all a little past their prime--but seeing old friends was worth the trouble and danger. Afterwards, when the Howlers who *had* lives to get back to gratefully got back to them, and Nick Fury went back to the CIA--he'd never quite left the service, apparently--Dum Dum invited himself back to Gabe's little bachelor apartment.

"Can't go home. My mother-in-law is there." Dum Dum smiled as he proffered this more or less false excuse.

Gabe had met Dum Dum's wife and mother-in-law on a trip to Boston after the war to finalize the couple's divorce. So Dum Dum didn't actually have a mother-in-law anymore, but Gabe tactfully didn't point this out.

Dum Dum made Gabe's apartment look even tinier than it actually was. It was not designed for two people, or for even one giant Irishman. Dum Dum perched carefully on a chair with a cup of coffee on his hands; Gabe barely managed to get past him to the kitchen and back, and wound up sitting on the bed. "They were good times," Dum Dum said. "I miss all of you."

"Yeah, me too." Gabe looked down at his own coffee, remembering the war. He didn't ever want to go back there, to the blood and the killing and all the people he'd known who'd died. "I miss the Howlers. If not the war."

"I thought you would understand!" Dum Dum stared at him intensely. "It's different for the others. But--you see. Nick made me an offer. He's working for the CIA now, and I asked if I could get a job there." It was Dum Dum's turn to look down, but just briefly. "I wanted to be with him."

Gabe smiled. They'd all been willing to die for their sergeant, but for Dum Dum there had always been more than that.

"Anyway," said Dum Dum. "He said, sure, I should apply. And then, after we all got together for Korea, I thought--it shouldn't just be me and him. It wouldn't be quite right, somehow. So I thought I'd ask you if you wanted to go work with us." He looked at Gabe earnestly.

Gabe thought about it. It wasn't as though he had anything else to do with his life. "Sure. I'll apply."

"Wonderful!" said Dum Dum. "The three of us are going to have so much fun."

And so they did.

V. Peggy Carter

Gabe and Peggy never actually met during the war, but they were enough in the same place in the same time that even before the amnesia wore off, they had things to talk about. Granted, a lot of what she talked about, early on, was Captain America; but then, everyone who fought in that war has a Captain America story or two. Gabe had quite a few of his own. It was hard to be jealous of a legend, even one Gabe worked beside regularly, and one Peggy's sister was dating.

And he could always change the subject to the French resistance, or even to the music of their youth, all of which Peggy now remembered more vividly than Gabe. She made him feel old and young at once, but not at all unpleasantly so.

As Peggy's memory improved, so did her fighting skills. She wasn't twenty anymore, but her body and will adapted quickly, and pretty soon she was taking down trainees half her age. In fact, she didn't do so badly against Gabe himself, when he gave her a private lesson. And she seemed to be enjoying herself so much; hardly surprising, after all that time she'd spent cooped up in that house in Virginia.

Being close to her was fun for Gabe, too. Her enthusiasm for her new life was contagious and it was increasingly hard not to notice his physical attraction to her. He had to be careful not to schedule *too* many private lessons; it wouldn't be fair to the others.

"Agent Jones." Peggy smiled at him from the door of his office at SHIELD. "I seem to have acquired two tickets to a production of _Anything Goes_ for Saturday night. Would you like to come with me?"

"Of course, Peggy! And if supervillains decide to attack, I'm telling Fury we're both *busy*." He walked up to her and took both of her hands. "May I assume this is a date? Or have I just found a girl who really appreciates Cole Porter?"

Peggy kissed him. "Yes," she said, when they stopped for breath. She didn't bother to specify.


End file.
